Daily Update: NoNoWriMo Day 26

Wow, we’re in the homestretch of this NaNoWriMo thing. Just a few days left. The pressure to finish has begun. Will I get finished? Won’t I? What will I feel if I do? What will I feel if I do? Does it matter that I still won’t be any closer to having a completed novel? So many questions.

I’m actually more excited to be writing my 2012 postmortem. I’ll do a NaNoWriMo postmortem first to explain the little I learned over the course of November, but it was nothing that hadn’t come to me during the year already. Honestly, I could probably type it up now, but I’ll hold off. There are many other words to write first and I need to get to those.

So Yesterday I sat. I wrote. I knocked out just over 1000 words. Yeah, I was behind yesterday and now I’m more behind today. My Favorite Daughter had a volleyball banquet and spending time with her, or any family, or friends, is more important that shoving my nose in the the computer and typing like a madman. Sure, I think writing is one of my priorities, but there are choices, and then there’s life to live.

I read a post by J.R. Blackwell (yes, I find it funny that she and I share the J.R. of our names) and her post was insightful. It’s something I really needed to think about. There are a lot of people out there that write. Most are not comfortable with their level of writing ability. Some have life happen and just stop writing. Still others never even try and give up before they start. If you want to be a writer and see work published, you need to take risks and one of those risks is getting your work in front of people. It’s scary, but if you’re persistent talent be damned, you will find an audience.

There are some terrible authors out there. No, really. Some are just plain awful. I can’t count the number of books that have explained a story to me that had me so bored I had to put the book down. There are others that have stories that either make no sense or have plot holes that drive me mad (there are a lot of movies like that, but I digress). Finally you’ll find authors that just plain can’t tell a cohesive story. What do all of these have in common? They’re all PUBLISHED! Someone saw their work and loved it and decided it needed to be in print.

You are you own worst critic. If you write, don’t judge your own material against someone else’s material. Allow others to judge your material on its own merit. That’s the best thing you can do. When you sit alone and write it’s difficult to tell yourself that what you’re writing is any good. Trust me, you’ll see every flaw and learn to hate your writing unless you can get another person to read it and even then you’ll still tell yourself that it sucks and it could be better and and and…

Stop and take a breath. Realize that 1) no one is forcing you to write and 2) you should be having fun writing that story.

If you’re not having fun then I think you should reassess why you’re writing in the first place. If you’re having fun and don’t want anyone else to read your work, that’s fine. No, really. There’s no rule you need to write something for other people. Just know that someone somewhere will like what you’ve done. There are a lot of people in the world and if you cared enough to write it, someone will be happy reading it.

I’ve written a lot of stuff. Some will never see the light of day. That’s just the way my brain works. Some of this stuff isn’t meant for human consumption (some I wouldn’t even let my dog poop on). Even so, there is some of it that I’m quite happy with. I had fun writing the stories and hopefully people enjoy reading them. That’s why I write. I want to entertain people. Nothing more, nothing less. In the end I’d be just as happy with 10 people reading my work as 10,000. Obviously if 10,000 people read my work I’ll be more motivated to write more, but it won’t change the fact that I’m having fun doing this.

I’m going to do my day job. Then I’m going to have some fun. I hope, if you write, you’re having fun too.